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Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

Beyond the moral arguements, the real reason nothing has happened is that this has absolutely no popular support in areas who actually have undocumented immigrants.

People in these areas usually are fine with them because "who cares". Businesses are fine because they usually represent cheap labor. Local governments have a lot to do on their plate already, they don't want to go in the immigration business.

These policies are basically "federal overreach". Feds fly in to do something the locals do not want.

Do you think LA is a sanctuary city because of Obama? It's the will of the people. Who cares what people in Iowa think?

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We're fine with them because they're our friends and neighbors.

That's super true, though it's important to remember that ghettos are still a thing in all but name only in some cities. Public transit routes still get voted down because "they" might show up in the nicer parts of towns.

It takes many legal immigrants years to get status. Some of them wait a decade. I've known a few who had to wait this out. For these people having others jump the line is not a friendly gesture.

Most people welcome immigrants, so long as they follow the rules others have to follow.

Arguably our system is in need of reform or many kinds (it's our prerogative to seek immigrants of high value to the economy, for example, or those who fill a skills gap or labor gap -say farm workers)

I'm fine with them because I'm a parent, and the idea of deporting the parents of my children's friends and classmates makes me nauseous and angry. I don't much care for any analysis past that.

It was the same with the trans bathrooms. You might be surprised how many of us parents have kids with trans friends. The issues get real clear real fast when you see how they affect your kids friends. It's not at all hard to get a glimpse of how they'd affect your kids, if circumstances were different.

The trans thing is something I don't get. It's a non issue. Make all bathrooms unisex. Any one can use any bathroom. In the end women get more access to bathrooms than they do now. Stick a couple of urinals here and there.

When people get into a country illegally, they know it's illegal. They know the consequences (for themselves and any dependents), but they hope they will not get caught and do it anyway, so it's hard to see it as if the state "did this" to them. I've seen this in China, Japan, etc. They know any day could be their last. Many had to have their friends sell their belongings for them because in those places you may have a week at most to get out.

Most undocumented immigrants are people who overstay an original visa. The reasons for people being in places are rarely simple.

Moreover, whatever you have to say about the parents, the children are American citizens, with all the rights and privileges our grandparents fought World War 2 to preserve. If their families are to be torn up, there needs to be a better reason than lack of immigration paperwork.

Not to belabor the point, but most children of illegal immigrants are dual citizens --US and their parents' home country.

However, the administration should consider these a lower priority but should enforce immigration policy so that we do not have as many of these cases come up. Basically continue the Obama approach but with better border security.

What on Earth does it matter that they have dual citizenships? They've known no other home but the United States --- their actual home country --- and even if that weren't true, they're American citizens.

A "lower priority"? Shouldn't it be the opposite: the priority being that we don't tear up the families of our countrymen over paperwork issues?

Lower enforcement priority. That is may not even get to addressing them from a legal perspective.

I mention it because some people think "Oh, we're throwing the parents of American citizens out" --no it's the parents of someone who both hold foreign as well as American citizenship. So one could as equally say they're deporting the parents of a Serbian or Brazilian citizen, but it'd be most accurate to say the parents of a dual Brazilian and American or dual Serbian and American citizen.

You keep writing as if to imply that someone who might have access to Honduran citizenship, the way I would have access to Irish citizenship by dint of an Irish grandparent, is somehow less of an American citizen than others. Is that what you mean to imply?

Not quite. Citizenship is a somewhat odd thing (think China or Japan and other places and how they interpret citizenship) in that countries have different views on it and how its gained (some require military service, for example). And the children are no less a citizen, but they are also not less of a citizen of the second country either (which seems to be an implication some are trying to make)

So your parents were not more American than say they were Irish [if their parents were still legally Irish at their births]. They were the same. But we're trying to say they are more American than they are Irish and by law they would not be.

Can you bring us back to the place where I am meant to care about this? We are talking about people who have known no other country than their home country --- America.

Well, affected families have two options --split up (some in America some back home in Croatia, Honduras, etc. or follow their parents as their dual citizenship allows and apply for visa and citizenship as allowed by law.

I agree that those are the options. What I don't understand is how that isn't abhorrent: lose your parents, or lose your home country. What kind of a choice is that? No kind at all. We owe our countrymen better than that. I mean, we just plainly do; it's close to the bare minimum obligation we have as a nation.

Simple solution: amend the constitution and ban the 14th amendments birthright clause. Are there any other countries on Earth that support people sneaking in to pop out a baby with the knowledge that said country will fully pay for and grant all rights and privileges to that child? No. It's not about compassion for immigrants, it's about reality and economics. We have millions of homeless and impoverished in our own backyards so let's stop incentivizing the poor of other countries to come here and get a free ride on the back of our middle class.

Are you advocating that we amend the Constitution to strip the citizenship from a class of American citizens?

> amend the constitution and ban the 14th amendments birthright clause.

And replace it with what, exactly? That clause [0] is, after all, what created uniform national citizenship, and eliminated varying and discriminatory state citizenship policies. Even if one agrees that the "anchor baby" problem is something that warrants limiting citizenship to combat (highly contentious proposition itself), simply blowing up the entire post-Civil War model of US citizenship is a rather brute approach with wide ranging consequences outside the immediate target area.

[0] "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

And republicans are fine with them because they need cheap workers they can abuse who will never call OSHA, that they can steal wages from, and that they can stiff on workers comp.

For just one of so many appalling stories: https://www.thenation.com/article/immigrant-workers-are-bein...

If we actually wanted to stop illegal immigration, getting serious about e-verify and levying enormous fines on employers would get the job done.

Oh for sure. But the dimming of prospects for low skills Americans may have the Repubs, with their newfound populism, find that to survive as a party they will have to look out for the derided suburban worker instead of the guy or gal who sit in corner offices.

I will believe it when it happens (not that I would object, the middle class needs all the help it can get).

But so far, the populism looks like hokum. For just one example, Carrier was bribed to stay. And probably in a way that gets more money to the execs than to the employees. My bet is grift all the way down...

It ain't going to happen but I'd love to see Bernie tapped for a labor dept job. Get him in, co-opt him and have him go at the sellouts who move ops overseas to save a few bucks.

As jobs are automated away and our own unskilled labor force finds it harder to find any job, there will be more concern about it.

All the feds have to do is enforce e-verify. If anything Trumps win likely signifies distress from the working class. If the Dems dig in their heals and cater more to non citizens than they do their own citizens, I'm afraid they may lose in the next election again.

> All the feds have to do is enforce e-verify.

No, that is plainly not sufficient, which is obvious because many states already do this. Unless by "enforce E-Verify" you mean something far more drastic.

It means you fine people or firms hiring people who don't have work documents. No excuses. Forged? They get fined and pay for the ticket back to home country of person using forged docs.

> If the Dems dig in their heals and cater more to non citizens than they do their own citizens, I'm afraid they may lose in the next election again.

This is precisely why Trump won more than any reason. He made an appeal to the most important group in America, the middle class, and they agreed with him.

I'm not sure Trump has it in him, but if he did and courted the black working class the right way, I think he could start winning them over from the Dems. But he has to be serious about creating jobs for them, it means raising the min wage to $15 and not allowing undocs to undercut citizen workers.

Trump should learn one thing. Black families like jobs. They'll vote for jobs. They also want, if not always like the police but jobs would go a long way to smoothing things over, as with any pop.

agree, I'm optimistic, he may be the best President ever...

How do you feel about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/us/politics/trumps-off-the...

he lost the popular vote, and only won it within income brackets above $60k+.

He won because everyone voted along party lines + similar turnout to 2000 (Dem marginally above Rep turnout). All other narratives do not match the actual results.

How does that explain winning states like PA, which voted for Gore in 2000 by 4%?

White voters in PA that voted for Obama last cycle were 2-3x more likely to stay home than to vote against HRC.

That's a tough stat to parse. Where did you find that?

Sounds contradictory to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/upshot/how-did-trump-win-o... for instance, but that's a bit older. Maybe I missed something.

Put more simply: Trump didn't convert Democrat "white working class" voters in PA, so much as they abstained from the election altogether. The middle class didn't vote Trump in; they sat the whole thing out.

(Some) Dems reps in W. Pa. while possibly mistaken have said differently. They mentioned people switching party reg[1] among other things.

[1]http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/10/12/nearly-100000-penn...

Trump got way more votes than Romney did, nearly as many as Obama 2012, despite considerably more third party votes. Overall turnout was higher than 2012 too.

So theory is Trump mobilized a ton of voters who sat out in 2012?

sorry but this is so inaccurate... this thinking is what will prevent the democrats from winning for the next decade..

Do go on.

> the middle class didn't vote Trump, they sat the whole thing out.

Wrong. Trump won the election in a landslide of the electoral college and likely a majority of the popular vote if you audit the southwestern states you abhor to filter out "undocumented people" who voted. That is also not taking into account that Trump primarily campaigned in a small handful of states due to the nature of our electoral system and likely would have won larger in a system without the electoral college. He won the rust belt states which voted Obama into office for 8 years. Attempting to strip his victory from him by making empty statements about the white working class does little to advance any sort of counter-argument to his policies or achievements.

"Landslide".

Nixon 1960: 49.55%

Gore 2000: 48.38%

Kerry 2004: 48.26%

Ford 1976: 48.01%

Romney 2012: 47.15%

Trump 2016: 46.17%

And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills...

"in the electoral college" aka the system that elects our President where Trump won 306 to her 232

this made me think of you http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/03/im-democrat-and-im...

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